W is for Weary
Jan. 26th, 2006 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastArgh.
Yesterday was a bit of a nightmare, as far as the whole writing thing goes. I'm trying to get the "final" ms. for Alabaster assembled. I needed to get it together yesterday, all of it, because I have so few days for Daughter of Hounds, which I know needs lots of work. But I spent hours in the afternoon finding two particular lines from Paradise Lost and the Duino Elegies that I want to use for Alabaster's opening epigraphs. That ate up a nice chuck of the day, especially since I somehow ended up straying into William Blake. And then I decided that I absolutely had to read through "Bainbridge" one last time. I didn't finish with that until after seven p.m., and it resulted in the discovery of a large number of new revisions I wanted to make to the story. After dinner, I spent two more hours on "Bainbridge." And realised, again, that I've lost even the ghost of objectivity with this piece. And I realised, too, that this is something fairly new. This constant revising is something I only started doing sometime late in 2004, when I was working on the page proofs for The Dry Salvages. And last night it was suddenly clear to me why this has happened. My writing style, my voice, has changed considerably in the last two or three years. I've moved away from the old "prose poetry" stuff. No longer do I linger over every single word, as I'm writing, until I'm certain that word and only that word can go there or there. My prose is looser. It's more malleable. I'm told it's also more "accessible" than it used to be. And that last bit would bother me, except that, if it's even true, it's only an accident that's ridden piggyback on this change, which has seemed, all along, to be a completely natural, if sometimes startling, evolution in my work. It has not followed from comments by editors or agents or reviewers (either real or the Amazon.com sort) or readers. It's just been happening, and my instincts told me to allow it to happen.
But, now I see that by allowing this "loosening up" of my voice, I've also opened the door to a sort of endless cycle of revision. I wish I could think of a better way of saying that. Anyway, yeah. Revision. Many word choices have come to seem rather arbitrary. It's almost impossible to know when something's "finished" these days. Indeed, I'm pretty sure nothing really is ever finished these days. I just finally reach a point where I stop or someone tells me to stop or I have to stop because I've come up against or over the top of a deadline. This is happening with "Bainbridge." It happened with "Pony." It's going to happen big time with Daughter of Hounds. And I miss the old certainty. I miss my fierce allegiance to my sentences. But I also know that going back would be impossible. If I'd changed for someone else, I could probably retrace my steps. But since this change came from me, there are no steps to follow back to that previous voice. Because the voice is indivisible from me. This is how I should be writing from this point in time. But the constant revision, it's something I've got to find a way to cope with. It devours time, and I fear I'm fixing things that aren't broken. It never used to be this way. I finished a story and, corrections of actual mistakes aside, it was finished. I didn't write in drafts, and now I almost do.
And now it's twenty-one days and counting. Three weeks. Slippery, slippery time.
I’ve seen bad things in bad places
what did I learn?
wallow in grime
tonight we’ll drink the sewers dry
we can’t function outside of these dreams of suicide (Gravenhurst)
Whatever bug I was suffering from on Tuesday seemed to have run its course by yesterday afternoon. Today I'm fine. Spooky's having more trouble fighting it off. My amazing immune system strikes again.
We got out for a short walk yesterday, shorter than the walk on Tuesday. But we did make it as far as Freedom Park. The weather had turned cold and windy, but I wanted to see the flowers again. Spooky took some photos of our false spring (behind the cut):
There's exciting news of a new dinosaur-like archosaur from the late Triassic of Arizona, which has been given the name Effigia okeeffeae. A bipedal crocodylomorph, and the new taxon was named in honour of the late Georgia O'Keeffe, as the type specimen was discovered near her home.
Have a look at the letter Z auction. It ends tomorrow. Meanwhile, there's a 613 pp. ms. with my name on it...literally.
Yesterday was a bit of a nightmare, as far as the whole writing thing goes. I'm trying to get the "final" ms. for Alabaster assembled. I needed to get it together yesterday, all of it, because I have so few days for Daughter of Hounds, which I know needs lots of work. But I spent hours in the afternoon finding two particular lines from Paradise Lost and the Duino Elegies that I want to use for Alabaster's opening epigraphs. That ate up a nice chuck of the day, especially since I somehow ended up straying into William Blake. And then I decided that I absolutely had to read through "Bainbridge" one last time. I didn't finish with that until after seven p.m., and it resulted in the discovery of a large number of new revisions I wanted to make to the story. After dinner, I spent two more hours on "Bainbridge." And realised, again, that I've lost even the ghost of objectivity with this piece. And I realised, too, that this is something fairly new. This constant revising is something I only started doing sometime late in 2004, when I was working on the page proofs for The Dry Salvages. And last night it was suddenly clear to me why this has happened. My writing style, my voice, has changed considerably in the last two or three years. I've moved away from the old "prose poetry" stuff. No longer do I linger over every single word, as I'm writing, until I'm certain that word and only that word can go there or there. My prose is looser. It's more malleable. I'm told it's also more "accessible" than it used to be. And that last bit would bother me, except that, if it's even true, it's only an accident that's ridden piggyback on this change, which has seemed, all along, to be a completely natural, if sometimes startling, evolution in my work. It has not followed from comments by editors or agents or reviewers (either real or the Amazon.com sort) or readers. It's just been happening, and my instincts told me to allow it to happen.
But, now I see that by allowing this "loosening up" of my voice, I've also opened the door to a sort of endless cycle of revision. I wish I could think of a better way of saying that. Anyway, yeah. Revision. Many word choices have come to seem rather arbitrary. It's almost impossible to know when something's "finished" these days. Indeed, I'm pretty sure nothing really is ever finished these days. I just finally reach a point where I stop or someone tells me to stop or I have to stop because I've come up against or over the top of a deadline. This is happening with "Bainbridge." It happened with "Pony." It's going to happen big time with Daughter of Hounds. And I miss the old certainty. I miss my fierce allegiance to my sentences. But I also know that going back would be impossible. If I'd changed for someone else, I could probably retrace my steps. But since this change came from me, there are no steps to follow back to that previous voice. Because the voice is indivisible from me. This is how I should be writing from this point in time. But the constant revision, it's something I've got to find a way to cope with. It devours time, and I fear I'm fixing things that aren't broken. It never used to be this way. I finished a story and, corrections of actual mistakes aside, it was finished. I didn't write in drafts, and now I almost do.
And now it's twenty-one days and counting. Three weeks. Slippery, slippery time.
I’ve seen bad things in bad places
what did I learn?
wallow in grime
tonight we’ll drink the sewers dry
we can’t function outside of these dreams of suicide (Gravenhurst)
Whatever bug I was suffering from on Tuesday seemed to have run its course by yesterday afternoon. Today I'm fine. Spooky's having more trouble fighting it off. My amazing immune system strikes again.
We got out for a short walk yesterday, shorter than the walk on Tuesday. But we did make it as far as Freedom Park. The weather had turned cold and windy, but I wanted to see the flowers again. Spooky took some photos of our false spring (behind the cut):
There's exciting news of a new dinosaur-like archosaur from the late Triassic of Arizona, which has been given the name Effigia okeeffeae. A bipedal crocodylomorph, and the new taxon was named in honour of the late Georgia O'Keeffe, as the type specimen was discovered near her home.
Have a look at the letter Z auction. It ends tomorrow. Meanwhile, there's a 613 pp. ms. with my name on it...literally.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 05:29 pm (UTC)Great. Now I have hair-envy. *le sigh*
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Date: 2006-01-26 05:42 pm (UTC)~Jacob
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Date: 2006-01-26 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 07:19 pm (UTC)Sirenia #2 was the best yet. Both "Orpheus..." and "Pony" were satisfyingly hot. I have to say that before I read the story, I was trying to imagine the hippogyne as being a horse-headed biped (ala The Minotaur), since that was the easiest way for me to imagine it ambulating.
FYI, there's a bit in the Decameron about someone trying to turn their wife into a horse. It's a bawdy little tale (of course), but features a nice little bit of narration where the charlatan "transforms" each part of the woman into the horse. Of course, the tail is the hardest thing to put on, which is where the "hilarity" ensues. Anyway....
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 07:54 pm (UTC)That's my fending-off-dogs stick.
Both "Orpheus..." and "Pony" were satisfyingly hot.
I'm very pleased you thought so. "Pony" has really gotten to me, so to speak.
FYI, there's a bit in the Decameron about someone trying to turn their wife into a horse. It's a bawdy little tale (of course), but features a nice little bit of narration where the charlatan "transforms" each part of the woman into the horse. Of course, the tail is the hardest thing to put on, which is where the "hilarity" ensues. Anyway....
Hmmmm...
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Date: 2006-01-26 10:31 pm (UTC)I want to earmark the purchase price of my copy of Alabaster so you can afford a more intimidating stick.
"Pony" has really gotten to me, so to speak.
Actually, I found "Pony" to be a bit more violent than "Orpheus...", but that was because I could sort of more comfortably integrate the goresex in "Orpheus..." than I could the seething turmoil we see between the lovers in "Pony".
Hmm.
Day 9, Novel 10. (http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/decameron/engDecShowText.php?myID=nov0910&expand=day09)
Of course, there's also Novel 7 of the same day, which may be integrated with other themes in your fiction.
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 11:49 am (UTC)Yes, I've very much been noticing that since I've been reading The Five of Cups lately. It's interesting. I do like both styles.
Your newer style seems to give a more distinct feel for the characters' personalities, I think. One thing I noticed about The Five of Cups, is that I felt like I was getting fascinating impressions of reality before I was getting character. Although I realise that those impressions are part of the character's point of view--which is one of the distinct strong points of the book. But it's easy to just sit and look at the lines like they're components of a beautiful painting of a location.
Your newer stuff seems more interested in playing out intellectual and psychological problems. And I guess, while it does seem as though you may've been more confident with the older stuff, it really feels like you have more control over the new stuff. Personally, I feel that leads to a richer reading experience, yet I also feel my view wouldn't be the only valid one.
I like the pictures. Your outfit's very nice, though obstructive.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 04:12 pm (UTC)Actually, I'd consider The Five of Cups as predating the maturation of the voice before this new voice. I think "Anamorphosis" (written in May 1994) may have been the first story that was firmly in the voice — what do I call it? I need a term. Whatever.
Your newer stuff seems more interested in playing out intellectual and psychological problems. And I guess, while it does seem as though you may've been more confident with the older stuff, it really feels like you have more control over the new stuff.
Hmmm. I don't know. This is an interesting observation. It makes me wonder what you'll make of Daughter of Hounds, which feels much more "story-driven" and less "character-driven" than all my other novels. Of course, I may be wrong.
Your outfit's very nice, though obstructive.
Yeah, well, it was cold out, and while I'm in pink drag, I have to at least pretend that the chill bothers me.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 02:30 pm (UTC)"Anamorphosisian" maybe? It makes my tongue feel weird.
It makes me wonder what you'll make of Daughter of Hounds, which feels much more "story-driven" and less "character-driven" than all my other novels. Of course, I may be wrong.
It could be entirely a product of my own perception (and not always reliable memory), but I think I'd describe most of the stories in your older voice as "interwoven character portraits", and the stories in your newer voice as "violent character copulation." Both descriptions, I think, could go for what's literally going on in works from both periods, but those are the assignations my impressions give. Keeping in mind it's been a couple years now since I read Tales of Pain and Wonder, Silk, and Threshold--the distance, I think, may have good and bad consequences for the quality of my perceptions.
There was a still, very picture quality to your older voice. I recall Silk as being a series of paintings. Even somewhat action oriented scenes felt more about admiring brushstrokes and colours than being washed downstream. And that was delightful.
Your newer voice is capable of rendering characters and places beautifully, but that seems less the overall objective, and those things are instead used to put forth ideas of personality or circumstance.
So I don't think it would seem a deviation whether you were to write "story-driven" or "character-driven," as both story and character now seem to be devices used to convey intellectual ideas--be it the nature of Spyder in Murder of Angels, or the nature of space travel in The Dry Salvages.
Of course, it may all simply be a matter of you becoming better at communicating complicated ideas through a fictional story.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading Daughter of Hounds.